Fade to Red?

LETTER FROM MOSCOW about fashion in Russia... Writer visits the Christian Lacroix boutique, the Gianfranco Ferre Studio boutique, as well as a closed bluejeans store called Big Star, nearby... Describes fashion in the Soviet Union...Over the years, foreign friends—mostly Americans—were always shocked by the idea that Russians might take any interest in fashion. To them, the Soviet Union was the incarnation of anti-style, so much so that the Wendy’s hamburger chain used to run commercials featuring a Soviet “fashion show,” which featured a very fat woman wearing burlap... The leather jacket, once the symbol of selfless struggle against capitalism, became in the early nineties the preferred garment of the post-Soviet hustler. The new gangster capitalists, much like their revolutionary forebears, wore their leather jackets with firearms as accessories and were no less ready to use them. Unlike their predecessors, however, they wore heavy gold chains and were often accompanied by underdressed women... Probably the person hurt most by the invasion of foreign fashion designers to the Russian market was Slava Zaitsev, who was for years the only clothing designer of note in the Soviet Union—in fact, the only designer authorized to introduce Soviet haute couture to the world. Writer visits his atelier...